Food

Quick Healthy Bites: Sweet Potato Kofta Recipe

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Mom. Chef. Writer. Entrepreneur. Priya, a mother of three, lives in Earlysville, Virginia. In 2014, Priya created her own company, "Suvaiyana" to sell Indian spices and chutneys, after joining the Charlottesville City Market. All of her foods are made at her fully certified home kitchen with authentic ingredients from India, and often, organic produce from her garden. Priya has her own food blog (Priya’s Now Serving) and catering business as well, which can be seen at www.priyasnowserving.com. Priya was a political journalist before she started cooking professionally, and her gift for writing is one she has kept up over the years. She's currently working on publishing her first illustrated children's novel, Princesses Only Wear Putta Puttas, a wonderful story about what it is like for a child to be exposed to two cultures.

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Kofta has always been a ‘no-no’ any time I’ve been to a restaurant, because the only kind you get is the “malai” koftas, meaning cream koftas. They are heavy, lumpy, doughy and even in the very best restaurants are either over-soaked and soggy, melting into the sauce OR you have the kinds that never soak and are hard and tasteless that stand alone, unrelenting.

And then over the past year that I’ve been blogging, I have seen some memorable koftas that have inspired me to come up with this one.

Look how far we have come from its actual meaning if we have wholly adapted this dish to a vegetarian palate:

Definition of Kofta from the Oxford Dictionary:

noun (plural same or koftas) (in Middle Eastern and Indian cooking) a spiced meatball.
Origin: From Urdu and Persian, literally ‘pounded meat’

To the best of my knowledge, these are deep-fried and soaked into hot sauce/gravy.

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So, the kofta, served by itself, is rather like a cutlet, along with a pita, a falafel with gravy – the kofta curry we know so well to be an Indian gourmet dish.

What’s different about this kofta recipe?

*I used a healthy substitute to the usual potatoes by using sweet potatoes

*I liked using Garbanzos for a fiber and low fat factor

* I did NOT deep-fry it and that did NOT compromise on the taste an iota

*My gravy was just as healthy in that I used my standard gravy companions onion and tomato with chilies and some spices – adding NO cream whatsoever getting that creamy texture by cooking the veggies first and adding no more than 10 -12 pieces of cashews. The end result was immensely pleasing and I felt mighty triumphant that I had made this dish – finally – in my home and realized how cinchy it is to make it.

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But, it would be remiss of me to not give credit to my new dippy pan that has inspired me to make several wonderful preparations. I encourage you to try this combo at home and see for yourself how incredibly tasty these come out.

The Recipe

INGREDIENTS

3 sweet potatoes

1 can of garbanzo beans

Green chilies – to taste

1 Red chili

Cilantro – 1tbs crushed

Sage- 2 leaves

About 1tsp of oil

Mustard seeds (optional)

Cumin seeds (optional)

2 tsp of curry powder

PREPARATION

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  • Cook and mush the sweet potatoes
  • In a food processor, add washed and drained garbanzos and make a crumbly powder
  • In a pan, heat the oil and splutter mustard and cumin seeds
  • Add the chilies, herbs and the curry powder to the oil followed by the potatoes
  • Add the crumbled garbanzo
  • Add the salt and mix all the ingredients well
  • This mixture should be soft but thick now
  • Get the pan ready by placing it on low heat
  • Add some nonstick spray to the holes and ½ tsp of oil in each slot
  • I used an ice cream scoop to dole out the mix into the holes
  • Let the one side brown and gingerly flip over and brown the other side as well
  • Wait for it to get well cooked on both sides before removing from the slots
  • You can serve this as stand alone patties or cutlet dish with some raw onions and ketchup
  • You can use it as a Falafel and stuff into a pita and sink your teeth in verily
  • Or you can make kofta &curry with it, which was my original intent

FOR THE SAUCE

For the sauce, simple sauté 1 big red onion and 1 can of diced tomato with required amount of spices (clove, cardamom, cinnamon, bay leaves, red chilies, garlic (optional) and about 10 cahsews.

Let it simmer and cool before grinding.

Pour the sauce in the desired serving bowl and then arrange the koftas in the sauce.

Serve with naan or rotis or pitas – Bon Appetit!